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Topic: Best sting story (Read 8862 times)

Checking my girls the other day and noticed the buzzing was louder than usual. I didn't think my hearing was improving, and I was right. Managed to squash her and noticed a split where my zipper used to be. The entire front of my bee suit was open. Lucky I didn't have a dozen in there.

Back away quietly and get lovey to replace zipper with velcro. Back we go. 10 minutes later, bees in veil again. Sting on forehead, twice. Sting under throat. Another sting on forehead. Backed away much quicker this time with cloud of bees in pursuit. And I was almost confident enough to take my gloves off. Rear seam on veil completely ripped open. Not my best day beekeeping.

I had a quick look under the lid the other day, I only meant to take a quick peek so I didn't worry about smoke, veil etc... I took one sting either side of the chin right in the beard and another one underneath the ear, the missus got home and thought I looked like something out of the Godfather. :roll:

The other week, going to clear up a mess in one or two of my hives. Couldn't get the smoker working properly and didn't have alot of time so just went in without it. Keep in mind I had jeans and long sleeves on underneath my suit, had my ankles sealed up with duct tape around my leather boots, same around my arms where my gauntlet gloves ended near my elbows. First sting was on my hip, then left thigh, right thigh, left wrist (through the leather!) right wrist, left shoulder...then I finished up and went for a walk. The bees followed me round and around the yard for half an hour! eventually I gave up and just got in the car still suited up and drove away, still had one join me for the ride home :roll: Stings through clothing/suits aren't as bad as on bare skin I find, I think maybe the fabric prevents the stinger from burrowing in too far? stings through my suit don't swell up as much as bare skin ones.

Once I forgot to seal up my ankles and got 7 stings on each ankle before I ran away. Couldn't really walk for a couple of days :shock:

I've gotten back to the house after a few hours of bee work and realized I didn't even zip the veil...

I've also gotten nailed on the throat and while I was thinking "I wonder how that bee..." and got nailed again in the exact same spot and then realized I didn't get the jacket zipped quite all the way nor the velcro there quite stuck down...

And of course the old saying "when you feel a bee crawling up your leg you realize the best you can hope for is to get stung on the leg..."

A couple of years ago I got a call to collect a swarm off a head high portal

Lots a bees? says I

Hell yeah heaps! says he

Bigger than a football?

Yeah bigga

Wat as big as ya head?

Bigga

Beauty I think. Rippa swarm! Fill a box

So I pack a couple of boxes and throw in my veil even though I hardly ever use it when collecting swarms

I arrive and have a decko at the swarm. Biggest swarm I have ever seen. Queenie must have taken the whole colony and the one next door when she left. Good thing I got a couple of boxes. Better stick on my veil I think.

So I gently raise the box above my head and can feel the weight of bees on the bottom of the box. Get balanced! Gotta use one hand to support the box and one to give the beam a hit... that's the plan!

OK I give the beam a thump. The whole swarm lands in the bottom of the box.. Hell it's heavy... can't hold it.. strewth!! down it comes with 1.5 gig bees onto the concrete floor.

Bearing in mind the weather is hot and my clothing is brief I now had to contend with a zillion of angry ladies. Needless to say I was pulling out stings for quite a while.. had a couple of antihistamines when I got home and waited for a few days for the swelling to go down. Dont know how many stings I got but I did get the bees boxed and home. I still have them. They are the only surviving hive of 7 after a season from hell with the SHB.

Considering how many bees in the swarm, I didn't get as many stings as I could have so I see them as a kinda docile hive. I kinda like their genetics and hopefully the split I took yesterday will take and I will retain my little black bees. Saw Queenie yesterday and she is as black as the ace of spades.

They are the only surviving hive of 7 after a season from hell with the SHB.

Is this why you been in hiding, Slicko?Maybe you should have rubbed the stings with vegemite and seen if it helped.

Since I am here..I don't have many interesting sting stories. Yet. But the time we picked up my first hive was pretty funny. Somehow though the entrance was sealed, bees were starting to spill out somewhere from the bottom when 2 or 3 of us lifted it, like crowds when the doors open at Myers during a sale. It was pretty heavy. We decided to place the hive back on the stand - but the damage was done. Jose raced around the house with bees in pursuit. I followed him but the other two went the opposite direction. Well, the bees actually did a U turn and chased them. Doug unbuttoned his shirt after the first sting and that gave another mob of bees a good landing pad. He ended up copping six stings on his chest, and since we had that decoy, Jose and I came out sting free.

I was at my buddy Albert's place and told him he needed to level one of his hives that was crooked. if I remember correctly they were in three boxes with a good bit of bees.

He said he would do it later, I said well, I'm here now, let's go ahead with it.

So we proceeded to pick this thing up and Albert decided to rest his end for just a second on an old Porcelain bathtub he had outside that was being used as a fish pond. Well, that hive was pretty heavy and Albert must have had a crick in his back or something as he was not gentle about setting his end on the bathtub.

You see, neither of us had any protection on ...

Once his end abruptly rested atop that bathtub, we instantly smelled alarm pheromone! It was one of those oh heck moments!

Yes, they proceeded to boil out on us. I grabbed the smoker then ran to my truck and threw on my jacket. I was in shorts by the way. :-D

Albert put his jacket on but zipped up his veil with a good bit of bees inside. He was getting worn out so decided to run inside his house and 86 the jacket.

Meanwhile the yard is full of ticked off bees and the hive is till unlevel.

I somehow convinced him to man up and get his butt outside and give me a hand now!

We wound up leveling the hive and restoring order but to this day I have to kid him some about the incident. :-D

They are the only surviving hive of 7 after a season from hell with the SHB.

Is this why you been in hiding, Slicko?Maybe you should have rubbed the stings with vegemite and seen if it helped.

I somehow don't think that Vegemite would have helped, Lone.. It would have been smeared over most of my body including some parts that I wont mention. I would have looked like a big black and white cabbage patch doll

My wife, who is a priss, decided she wanted to try apitharapy on an arthritic thumb. Started grabbing bees off of the bird bath with tweezers and letting them sting her on her sore thumb. Didn't have much of a reaction at all, so she kept bumping up the number of bee stings she was doing at one time, till she got up to 4. I had a sneaking suspicion that she was squeezing the bees too hard with the tweezers and she was getting mostly dry stings so I told her to hold them gentler. Next time she tries it a couple of the girls really got a hold of her and she looked like Hellboy with the giant red arm for a week. Still blames me and hasn't gone near the bees since. :(

Well I thought these last stings were highly unusual. Bee crawls up my jeans (did not feel it at all) and I got stung on my left thigh. Ouch!! Suddenly I get stung just seconds apart on my right thigh. Also did not feel that bee crawl up my thigh.

What are the chances of getting stung in both thighs at the same time, both times I did not feel the bees crawl up and they both stung in the same area?? Weird!!